Good-Bye to the Midnight Flowers (Gen, PG-13)
Title: Good-Bye to the Midnight Flowers
Rating: PG-13
Category: Mainly gen oneshot with slight het
Word Count: 4606
Characters: Dean, Sam/Jess, and Mary
Spoilers: None
Summary:
spn_halloweenprompt: Demons in Jess and Mary's forms taunt and haunt the boys one Halloween. Much angst and sadness ensue when they are forced to end the women they love.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
Above the world, the moon was bright and full, the eye of a god who cannot be trusted, and below the moon, Sam’s shadow was a black silhouette looming over the freshly dug grave of a mortal who had met his end all too soon. Next to the unearthed casket, Dean wiped his forehead with his arm and proceeded to open the coffin. As he lifted the lid, dirt raining down, Sam crouched down to peer closer, holding a flashlight that paled in comparison to the light of the moon.
“There’s nothing in here,” Dean said after he had opened the casket and climbed inside. His boots left muddy footprints on the satin white padding.
“Nothing?” Sam echoed, readjusting the flashlight.
“A pile of ashes. That’s ‘bout it.”
“You think he was like that when the family buried him?”
“Doubtful.” Dean scratched the back of his head with dirty fingers and crossed his arms. The back of his shirt had a stripe of perspiration down the middle. “But, from what the reports have said, there was barely enough of the guy to bury,” he added, looking over his shoulder at Sam.
“Dental records only had his top jaw to identify him by. The bottom one was ripped right off the skull.”
Dean nodded in agreement. “I don’t wanna think about where the hell his bottom jaw went.” He winced dramatically, remembering the crime scenes photos they had stolen from the police station, which showed that the victims had been ripped to shreds of mere meat and flesh. “Sick.”
After scanning the area with an EMF meter and finding it clean, Dean clambered out of the coffin, closing the lid. He grabbed Sam’s hand and climbed onto the grassy ground. Wiping the dirt from his palms on his jeans, he then picked up his shovel from where he had thrown it earlier.
“We’re still out of answers, aren’t we?” Sam asked, turning off the flashlight and retrieving his own shovel.
“All we know is that there’s people being ripped apart in this city by something that’s not leaving any tracks.” Dean’s shovelful of dirt hit the top of the coffin and skittered down the curved lid like fleeing insects.
Sam paused and looked up at the moon, allowing his thoughts to wander from their latest hunt about something that left mutilated corpses in its wake and to travel instead to the memories of Halloweens gone by. But, then Dean’s voice was pushing its way into his nostalgia and saying, “Are you going to help me fill up this grave again, or do I have to do all the work myself?”
Imbedding his shovel into the heavy soil, Sam sighed. “I don’t like the feeling of this place.”
Dean raised an eyebrow and turned to face his younger brother. In the moonlight, half of his face was black with shadows, and his lone visible eye appeared questioning and maybe even frightened. “What are you saying?”
“I just think we should get out of here as soon as we can.”
Dean nodded, and nothing more was said between them. They both knew they needed to keep the silence so that they would be able to hear the monster if it were to come for them from the shadows.
- - - - -
The entire cemetery was divided into two halves by a winding street, which emptied out into a cheerful town outside the cemetery’s perimeter. The newer graves were on the north side of the road, and the older graves were located on the south side. The shortest way to the Impala was crossing this street and then venturing into the older part of the graveyard.
Sam and Dean walked out of the newer part of the cemetery, shovels slung over their shoulders without a second glance from the townspeople while witches and ghosts ran past them. Sam looked behind him as the squealing children disappeared down the sidewalk with their bags of candy bobbing against their hips. “Some night, huh?” he muttered under his breath.
“Yep,” Dean replied, stepping aside to avoid another onslaught of rushing children. “Some night.” This time, a werewolf, fireman, and fairy princess ran past. The werewolf stopped after running past the brothers and gave a squeaky prepubescent howl to their backs. His friends giggled, and the three of them ran up to the nearest house.
The street, despite being located around resting places of the dead, was friendly and warmly lit. Doorways were decorated with mingled blacks and oranges, and protective parents held their children’s hands to cross the street and exclaim, “Trick or treat!” to smiling neighbors.
“So, what do we know so far?” Dean asked, switching the shovel to his opposite shoulder.
“About…?”
“About how to bob for apples. What do you think, Sam? About the latest shit we’ve got to take care of.”
Lowering his voice as he sidestepped a glowing jack-o-lantern, Sam replied, “The people are found, ripped apart, without any traces of the killer.” As he talked, he counted off the points, popping each finger out from his fist. “They are buried, and apparently, after burial, the flesh dissolves into some sort of ashy material. The victims have nothing in common. Not age, not race or sex or anything like that. There have been,” he continued, “similar cases like this around the state, but the majority are centered in this town.”
“Do they have any hobbies that are the same? Maybe we’ve got a backgammon killer.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Dean bit down on the corner of his lip as they left the outskirts of the neighborhood and began to make their way into the older part of the cemetery. The light here was not the yellow friendliness of the houses, but instead an eerie white from the moon. Dean instinctively touched the butt of his gun on his hip.
“What do you have?” Sam asked, as if reading Dean’s mind.
“Silver bullets. Should take care of almost anything. I checked before we left; yours has them too. And if all else fails, I swiped some packets of salt from lunch.”
“I hope you’re right about those silver bullets.”
“Don’t worry, Sammy,” Dean smirked. “I’ll make sure to buy you a nice casket if I’m wrong.”
As they walked through the cemetery, the leaves, fragile from the light layer of frost on their skins, crunched and chattered underneath their boots. The graves were large and old, crumbling around their edges, and Dean and Sam had to walk in a single file to move through them.
Behind his brother, Sam looked down at his watch to see that, despite the darkness, it was not yet midnight. He walked carefully around the densely placed tombstones to avoid stepping too close to them. With the moon as full as it was, he could not be too cautious in a graveyard. He flinched at the thought of a hand rising up to pull him down.
“Do you remember that Halloween,” Dean began, clearing his throat, “when you dressed up as a pumpkin?”
Sam snickered. “I couldn’t get that orange paint off my face for a week after that. Man, Dad was pissed about that, and all the teachers thought I was sick with some tropical fever.”
“Yeah, I remember. It was great seeing all the other kids run away from you. Poor sick freak you were.”
After swatting Dean on the shoulder, Sam asked, “What’d you dress up as? I can’t remember…”
Dean didn’t say anything for a long moment, thinking back to the last Halloween he had dressed up. After that year, he had been away on hunts with Dad or too involved in research to devote his time into finding a costume. Part of him would always look at that Halloween so long ago as the last time he had been a child. When he finally answered Sam, his brother’s voice did not greet him.
“Sam?” Dean said, stopping and turning around to where his younger sibling was supposed to be standing. Instead of Sam’s tall figure, the only things Dean saw were a shovel on the ground and a trail of suddenly ending footprints. “Sam!” Dean shouted, dropping his own shovel and shooting his eyes around the hushed graveyard. “Sam!” he screamed again, and his brother’s name cut through the silence. A flock of sleeping birds rose into the air from a cluster of shadowed trees.
He cried Sam’s name again, but did not run. His brother was gone, and he did not know where to start looking. He remained frozen and terrified amongst the statues of crying angels.
- - - - -
When Sam awoke, his head was aching, and he raised a hand to his hair. His fingers touched something warm and wet, and he did not need a light to know that it was his own blood. Wincing, he rose to a seated position and looked around him. He was lying inside of a large crypt where the family’s names were engraved into the walls around him.
As he moved his legs underneath him, he heard a gentle voice ask, “How’s your head?”
He didn’t respond, confused and curious, and instead pushed himself upright to stand. The voice was so familiar that he doubted its authenticity, and he knew that he was in the middle of some nightmarish ploy.
“I hope you’re not too badly hurt,” the voice, a sweet feminine lilt, continued. It seemed to grow closer as it talked, and he reached for the gun tucked against his back. His fingers felt sore and swollen, some of them numb, but he hooked one of them around the trigger nevertheless.
“Who are you?”
“You tell me,” the voice giggled, and then Sam saw a human shape coming through the darkness. He raised the gun cautiously and backed away from the approaching shadow.
The shadow stepped into the pool of light that crept through the cracked door, and the person raised their face to Sam. He felt his heart drop, and a tang of acid rose in the back of his throat. But he could not shoot.
The shadow said, “I’m sorry it’s been so long, Sam.”
“Jess.”
- - - - -
Dean, after breaking his frozen limbs into movement, ran through the cemetery, his breath forming small clouds of condensation in the cold night air as he called out Sam’s name. There was no answer from the silent graves, but he continued yelling in some vain hope that Sam was only playing a Halloween prank on him. But after ten minutes of no answer, Dean had reached both the edge of the cemetery and the end his hope that this was merely a joke. He stopped to rest his hand on the corner of a tombstone that was wrapped in dead, brown moss and to catch his breath.
While anything could have taken Sam, the reoccurring thought that kept rising to the forefront was that whatever had killed the other people in the town was also with Sam. He just had to remember where the police had found the bodies, and there, he would find Sam. But Dean’s mind was a frantic blur of worries and fears, unable to process the systematic information from their research.
As he tried to calm himself, he fought to remember something that would help him locate Sam. Finally, tilting his head back and exhaling heavily, he was able to recall that all the victims were found around or inside a mausoleum. Immediately, he turned and broke into a run for the nearest tomb he could find.
- - - - -
She was wearing the same white nightgown that she had died in, and its fabric was smooth and clean, void of any damage from the fire. “I’ve missed you,” she said, bringing her hand up to touch the side of Sam’s face. Instinctively, he bowed his head away to avoid her.
She frowned in hurt and confusion. “I thought you loved me.”
“You aren’t who I think you’re supposed to be. She died. You aren’t Jessica.”
“I’m sorry I left you. I really am, but I had to go away for a little while before I could come back. Please, Sam, please believe me.” Her curls bounced down around her face when she tilted her head.
“How can I?” he whispered. “How can I? I saw you-Jess-die. I saw her burn above my head,” he spat, and his voice was laced with venom and agony.
“I know. But I’ve been given another chance. For you. Us, really. I didn’t want to leave you. Sam, I loved you. I still do.” She raised her hand again, and this time, he did not shrink from her touch. Her hand was warm and soft against his cheek, and she smelled like the perfume that he had given her as a birthday gift before she died. “C’mon, Sam, you’ve seen weirder than this, haven’t you?” She smiled, and he felt a piece of resistance fall away.
“How?”
“I made a deal with someone who said…who said they could help me see you again.” When Sam didn’t respond to her words, she pressed her lips together. “I never wanted to hurt you. You have to trust me. You wanted to marry me, remember that?”
“I remember.”
“Then why won’t you look me in the eyes?”
And he did then. He lifted his eyes and met her own. They were blue and glittering, smiling and focused on him; they bore directly into his soul, and he was surprised at their clarity. When she saw his recognition, she smiled happily, and he realized he had forgotten how beautiful she was when she smiled.
“Kiss me, Sam. Kiss me just for tonight. We don’t have any more than that.”
He bent his head, lowered his gun, and he kissed her. He kissed her softly at first, then in building passion as he said to himself, Yes, yes, this is her. This is the girl I have loved and always will. Yes. Oh God, yes.
He wrapped his arms around her frame as she threaded her fingers through his hair. They kissed, and beneath his touch, she sighed into his mouth. Finally, he pulled away, face flushed and skin hot to the touch.
“Jess,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “it really is you.” The words seemed stupid and blundering to say, but it had been so long since he had touched her, and perhaps she was ultimately dead, but at least for one night he could find happiness. Then, he finally admitted, “I love you. So much.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. When she lifted her head, her eyes were opened and flashed malicious yellow. Sam slammed against the wall, his head striking the cement with a painful beat, and he struggled to move. Through a wicked grin, she hissed, “Stupid boy. You should have known better.”
- - - - -
Dean did not find Sam in the first mausoleum that he searched. Nor did he find him in the second, third or the many others after that. He was quickly tiring, and his adrenaline was beginning to ebb. After so many empty searches, he was starting to lose hope of ever finding his brother. But, he could not quit. He would unearth every damned grave before he would stop.
Continuing across the graveyard, he approached yet another tomb. He walked toward the door, covered in dead ivy and years of rust. Just as he had reached forward to open it, he heard a voice from behind calling his name. When he spun around, a flurry of hope passed through him. “Sam?” he cried. “Is that you?”
But when he turned, the person standing behind him was not his brother.
- - - - -
She dug her fingers into his upper arm; her nails were sharp and sliced through the skin effortlessly. “So easy, you humans,” she smiled around long white teeth. Her voice was still distinctly feminine, but now had a dangerous vibration to it. Sam choked out something unintelligent, and she twisted her claws deeper into his muscle. Dark flowers of blood began to blossom through the sleeve of his jacket around the puncture wounds.
“Do you realize how gullible and weak all of you really are?” she hissed, bringing her lips close to his ear. He could feel his blood running hotly down his forearm. “Trusting the face of the dead ones they loved.”
With her other hand inside Sam’s arm, she brought her opposite hand up to his face. Lightly, she scratched his skin with her nails. “Have you ever heard the sound of a jaw being snapped from its hinges? No? Well, you’ll hear it tonight. It’s quite the sound.” Her fingertips ran across his lips, pushed their way past his lips, and touched the outsides of his gritted teeth. “And you were so willing to open your mouth for me earlier.” She removed her nails from Sam’s upper arm, and he inhaled sharply through his nose.
“All you have to do is scream for me, pretty. Scream just like they all did. It will be over much faster that way.”
“I’m not like them,” he growled through his teeth.
“Fell for it just as easily.” Her bloody hand came to rest on the soft skin of his abdomen, slipping underneath his shirt, and he knew that if she were to slice through him there, he would have no chance. The immense blood loss would be fatal.
“Tell him that,” Sam said with a nod toward the open door. The demon turned, causing her attention from Sam to waver, and her hold on him diminished enough that he could lift his hand up to aim the gun at her.
She turned back around, eyes blazing. “There’s no one there, you lying-” There was a crack of gunfire, and a gaping red hole trimmed in black appeared on her chest. “Oh God,” she cried, bringing her hands to her chest. “Oh, God.” Weakly, she crumpled to her knees, still holding her bleeding chest.
As the malicious tint disappeared from her eyes, Sam scrambled down next to her. “Jess,” he whispered, supporting her shoulders. “Jess, I’m here, okay? I’m here. I didn’t mean…I didn’t know…” Her eyes were the beautiful blue he had always known, and her smile was peaceful.
“You did what you had to do, Sam. It…had to be stopped,” she wheezed, wrapping her fingers around his coat sleeve. Her eyes fluttered over his arm where the blood was still wet and glistening. “Sam…your arm...”
“I’ll be okay,” he replied, feeling her blood stick to the creases between his fingers. “But, Jess, is it really you?”
She smiled faintly. “It tricked me Sam, it tricked me into coming back here and then it…took over me before I could stop it. I’m so…I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shaking his head and running his clean hand through her hair. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I should have told you about this-about me-when I had the chance. You deserved better than that.”
Weakly, she raised a cold hand to the side of his face, and he wrapped his hand around hers, pressing it against his cheek. “I got you, Sam. What could be better than that?”
He swallowed, unable to say anything more, and felt hot tears pooling in his eyes.
“I’ve got to go now, Sam. My time’s up here.”
“I love you, Jess,” he whispered around the lump in his throat.
“I know,” she smiled, and her form began fading away. As her skin lightened and weight lessened, he pulled her close to his chest just to hear her breathe one last time and smell her sweet perfume. He kissed her forehead with shaking lips, and his tears fell onto her fading skin.
When he pulled away, she was gone, and he was alone.
- - - - -
On the small dirt path, she stood in bare feet and a long white nightgown. Her hair moved slowly in the night air, and she said nothing as he sputtered and gasped at the sight of her.
Dean stepped down from the doorway of the mausoleum. His gun felt heavy and stupid in his fingers. “Mom?” he choked; his voice was small and childish again.
“Dean,” she smiled, and as he came toward her, she held out her arms for him. He instantly fell into them, not thinking of Sam, not thinking of the dangers, only thinking of her. He pressed his face against her shoulder as she stroked the back of his head. “Ssh, ssh,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
“After Lawrence…I thought? I thought I’d never see you again,” he mumbled into her hair.
“Sometimes things change.”
He pulled away from her, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand as if to force back the tears from where they came from and further deny their existence. “You can’t stay long, can you?”
“Not any longer than tonight, honey. I just wanted to see you again,” she smiled, and his heart broke at seeing her again, so real and so true, in front of him. “You’ve really grown up. I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“I’ve changed a lot from when I was four years old.”
“It’s a good change,” she replied. “I wish I could have been there for it. I’m sorry I wasn’t it.”
“It’s,” he shook his head, unable to look at her for too long without feeling an overwhelming rush of pain, “it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” She came to him and cupped her hand beneath his chin, tilting his head to look at her. “Dean, I never meant to leave you like that. You know that.”
He nodded, and despite the gesture, she could see that he did not fully believe her. “Dean, I loved your father. I loved Sam, and I loved you more than any of you will ever know. I’m sorry for everything that has been taken away from you because of it.”
“You didn’t know. You didn’t know about Dad or the hunts or the demon.”
She began, “I wish-” and abruptly, her voice stopped on a halting note as gunfire snapped through the cemetery’s silence. She lurched forward, grabbing onto Dean’s shoulders to stop herself from falling. A dark circle of blood formed on her back from a bullet wound.
“No,” Dean whispered. “No…No!” He looked up to see where the bullet had come from, and Sam stood in the distance, lowering his gun to his side. “You killed her!” Dean yelled at Sam. “You killed our mom!”
Before he could listen to Sam’s response, Mary sagged to the ground. There was a flash of yellow in her eyes before it quickly evaporated under her familiar blue. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.
“But, you…” Dean sputtered, unable to control his words or thoughts. His hands shook where they held her shoulders.
Sam approached, looking down at Dean and his mother. He held a gun in his hand limply, pointed toward the ground, and the sleeve of his coat was stained with something dark. Even though his face appeared tired and weak, he seemed to lack the pain that one would have gathered from shooting his own mother. “Tell her goodbye,” he said quietly. “Tell her you love her, and then let her go.”
As Mary whispered the dying words she had been unable to give her son before, she faded away in his arms, and Dean did just as Sam had told him to do.
- - - - -
They left the cemetery together, side by side, not daring to leave one behind the other. The moon seemed to bob above the trees as they walked, and Sam wondered if he had ever seen it so full.
“So it was a demon that somehow possessed their ghosts,” Dean finally said. It was the first that either of them had spoken since Mary had died in her son’s arms.
“Sounds like it. It used the ghosts of the victims’ loved ones to lure them into some kind of false security before killing them. Possessed the ghost, gave it matter so we could feel it like they were real, and after that…” he trailed off and raised a hand to his shoulder where the puncture wounds were dried but still sore and fresh with the memory of Jess’ face. “I just think it needed the blood to keep itself alive.”
“A rather cannibalistic bastard.”
Sam smirked faintly, trying to push past his own feelings to take part in Dean’s sarcasm which he knew was just a cover up for his own pain.
“Did you see it?” Dean asked. “I mean, you know…”
“Yeah,” Sam replied, and Dean nodded. No more needed to be said; they both understood enough. “Do you really think it’s gone?” he asked after a moment’s pause.
“I don’t know. You killed it while it was still with me, so I don’t know if it can multiply or there were just two existing copies and you knocked both of them out.” Dean shrugged. “Although if we see anyone else we shouldn’t be seeing, then at least let’s be smarter about it, all right?”
They left the cemetery and unlocked the Impala. Dean tossed the guns and shovels into the trunk, while Sam climbed into the passenger’s seat, hissing through his teeth with the movement of his injured shoulder. Hidden behind the lifted trunk, Dean wiped a hand down his face and bit on his lower lip to hold back the tears. Finally regaining his composure, he slammed the lid down on the trunk and walked to the driver’s side of the car.
After he had started the engine and began to move down the road, a woman appeared from the trees, joined soon by another. Their dresses were white and soft, moving slowly in the cold night breeze. They stood in the middle of the road, watching the car drive into the night with the two brothers safely inside.
As the car rounded a corner and disappeared from sight, the younger woman stepped forward, words of protest on her lips for the one she loved. But the older one gently took her by the shoulder. “Let them go,” she whispered tenderly. “Let them go on.”
“But he loves me,” the younger girl said, keeping her eyes fixed on the road where the car had once been. Her hair twisted and bounced against her back with the rolling wind. “I know he does…if I can just go to him.”
The older woman shook her head. “What has been done, has been done. Do not try to change it. If you love him, then let him go. Let him go on. Let him be happy. You want that for him, don’t you?”
The younger one nodded faintly, and her hair fell into her blue eyes. A single tear fell down the curve of her cheek and darkened the bodice of her dress. When she finally lifted her head, the older woman was standing next to her and gazing down the same road. She said nothing more and took the hand of the younger girl.
They stood in the middle of the road, silent and sorrowful, and looked out to the distance where the sky met the land. Together, they watched, guardian angels dressed in dazzling white with heads held high and tears wet on their cheeks, as they began to disappear. When at last, the sun was rising in the distance and the sky turning to salmon pink, they were gone, and the only trace that they had been there at all was the unseasonably warm wind through the trees.
End